Devil Sword Dante

Devil Sword Dante is the newly formed legendary devil sword of Dante, forged through employing the newfound power of his Sin Devil Trigger, which he awakened after impaling himself with his broken demonic sword Rebellion and merging himself with it along with his father's legendary blade, .

Appearance
The Devil Sword Dante's appearance is relatively simple compared to its counterparts, appearing as a large two-handed ebony sword with claws running up its length, talons for a handguard and a red jewel on its pommel. When using Sin Devil Trigger as well as certain attacks, the blade splits open in the middle, increasing in length while generating a second blade of fiery red energy.

Story
When Dante stumbled upon his old childhood home, he pondered about why his father Sparda had given him the Rebellion. When Griffon asks what he was muttering about, he remarks upon all the times he had been impaled repeatedly over the years by his own sword. Reflecting on the Yamato's ability to sever one's own being, Dante wonders what the Rebellion can do and promptly shoves it through his gut. Doing so caused his body to not only absorb the Rebellion into his being but his father's sword on his back as well, causing a massive burst of energy and transforming his Devil Trigger into its most powerful form. Without a word, Dante flies into the air and heads back to the Qliphoth, quickly barging back into Urizen's lair and saving Nero at the last minute from the Demon King's chokehold. Manifesting a new sword from his being bearing his name, Dante fought Urizen, pushing him back.

File

 * Nico's Weapon Report - Devil Sword Dante
 * A new devil sword born from the fusion of Rebellion and Sparda: the devil sword Dante.


 * Looks like Dante's following in his daddy's footsteps, swinging around a demon blade with his own name.


 * I dunno if he used his own power to fuse it with Sparda, or if it was Rebellion's doing... Either way, anyone can see this is one hell of a new weapon.

Gameplay
The Devil Sword Dante is unlocked at the beginning of Mission 12 when confronting Urizen along with Sin Devil Trigger. In the first playthrough of the story, it replaces Sparda, just as the latter replaced Rebellion, and renders both swords inaccessible until the game is cleared. It is significantly different to Dante's other two swords.

Devil Sword Dante switches most of Rebellion or Sparda's Swordmaster moves to be part of its basic moveset. Aerial Rave is now the basic air move with Helm Breaker triggered by pressing back and melee like Nero's Split, while Prop and Shredder have been made the final two hits of DSD combo C. Dante also gains access to Drive and Overdrive from this sword.

The real show-stopper for Devil Sword Dante, however, is "Swords Formantion." This is a charge move that summons glowing red swords simiilar to Vergil's Summoned Swords, which enhance Dante's capabilities. Invoking them costs two bars of the DT gauge. They will remain even if the player switches to a different melee weapon, and are automatically invoked for no cost, regardless of the selected melee weapon, if Dante activates Devil Trigger. The latter ability only requires that Dante have Devil Sword Dante in his inventory.

In Swordmaster mode the swords follow a formation called "Chaser." In this, the swords will copy Dante's melee moves, dealing extra damage and sometimes having unique effects such as Balrog's kick-launcher Updraft now kicking the enemy into a persistent spinning sword-wheel that forms in mid-air. Devil Sword Dante's own Swordmaster moves are completely different to the other swords, using the summoned swords to perform moves analogous to a basic ground combo (Four Handed), Stinger (Stingers), High Time (High Times) and Round Trip (Round Trips). All of these are performed independently of Dante himself, allowing him to continue performing moves of his own. They do not require Swords Formation to be summoned in order to use them, but will be more powerful if it is: Swords Formation will not interact with Dante's normal melee attacks while one of these attacks is being performed, however. Only one of the attacks can be active at any given time, so Round Trips will preclude the use of the other moves until it concludes. The variant of Round Trip also has the advantage that Dante does not throw his actual sword, and so he can still use it while the attack is dealing damage.

The only Swordmaster move from the other two swords that Devil Sword Dante retains is Dance Macabre. This works in the same way as before, but is now a back-to-forward command rather than just forward, as that is now used for the Swordmaster version of Stinger. Like all back-forward commands where there is also a forward command move, the back-forward move needs to be performed fairly quickly to avoid triggering Stingers instead.

Swords Formation and Devil Trigger also modify the other Styles significantly. If either is active, when using Gunslinger the swords will be in a formation called "Interceptor." In this formation they array themselves behind Dante in a manner reminiscent of Vergil's swords or some of Lucifer's moves. In this mode, the swords will automatically target and fire themselves at nearby enemies, dealing fairly minor damage but with quite a heavy knockdown effect.

In Trickster mode the swords form a formation called "Reactor." In this formation the summoned swords do not attack, instead hovering near Dante's feet. Trickster is massively enhanced by this, doubling Dante's evasive abilities: he can now perform a double ground dash with no delay between dashes, and do Sky Star, Air Trick or even Air Hike twice without touching the ground. The extra evasive moves have an associated animation where the summoned swords form platforms under Dante's feet.

In Royalguard, the swords enter a formation called "Escort." This has the swords follow Dante in a vertical bar formation. When Dante guards, they array diagonally forming a structure resembling a shield. In this formation, the Swords increase the amount added to the Royal Gauge when blocking attacks, and will automatically reduce the damage of all attacks that successfully hit Dante.

Devil Sword Dante also grants access to Sin Devil Trigger mode, and is the only weapon used for demon-Dante's melee strikes in that mode.

Movesets
Standard= Swordmaster=

Trivia

 * It continues the series' (possibly accidental) running theme of part-demon characters gaining power after being impaled through the chest with swords (Dante with Alastor in 1, Dante with Rebellion in 3, Nero with a Gladius in 4, and Vergil with Yamato and Dante with both Rebellion and Demon Sword Dante itself in 5).
 * The weapons conception is reminiscent of when Vergil stabbed Dante with the dormant Rebellion in DMC3, which awoke both the Rebellion and Dante's demonic power. Dante mentions this event just before stabbing himself with Rebellion.
 * The sword's expanded form bears resemblance to Akantor Broadsword, a weapon from Capcom's Monster Hunter series.
 * Excluding during regular gameplay when the sword is seen on his back, in cutscenes, unlike most other Devil Arms Dante wields, Devil Sword Dante is not carried upon his person, rather, Dante seems to summon it out of thin air and into his hand when necessary.
 * The way the sword is manifested from cluster of energy into the wielder's grip is similar with how Nero manifest Yamato into physical form in Devil May Cry 4. However, unlike Yamato when it was in Nero's possession, Devil Sword Dante doesn't seem to be bound to a specific body part, as one of Dante's taunt have him manifest the sword onto several place on his body.
 * While closed, there is a swirl pattern within the blade, near the tip. This is reminiscent of real world Damascus Steel, which has similar patterns.